


where we can meet again

by monopolizers



Series: the sudden rain [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Infidelity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 14:39:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5167592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monopolizers/pseuds/monopolizers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was hurrying down the street, trying to make it to the Starbucks at the corner before the rain started really coming down hard, when he bumped into someone and both their briefcases went flying. He bent down to reach for his own at the same time the other guy did, and looked up to meet Zayn's straight nose and long eyelashes. </p><p>"Oh," he said. "Hello."</p>
            </blockquote>





	where we can meet again

**Author's Note:**

> title/inspiration from [Chen Chen's Poplar Street](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/250452)

The club was heavy, dark and pounding; Harry liked it best like this, when he couldn't see anyone and no one could see him, not really, and he could run his fingers through his hair and tap another bloke on the shoulder and whisper something dirty in his ear. And then they could dance, hips rolling together, until they would stumble off to the loo and have a quick shag and come back to the bar, eyeing each other up, taking shots until they were blind drunk. It was best when he could do it all off pure physical memory. Nick said that was a function of youth. Harry thought it was a function of his nature, a natural extension of liking what was natural, of what his body could do, a natural reaction to knowing your body and knowing it deep and well and true. 

He made eye contact with a short-ish man at the bar, someone who looked to be about his age and was probably the most attractive person he'd ever seen. The bloke cocked his head and gestured out at the floor. His hair, dyed grey or maybe silver, gleamed in the light. Harry nodded. 

In the rush of the bodies around them, he almost thought he'd lose the lad, but they managed to come together easily enough, and then they were pressed together, heavy and hot, and even though this guy was small and slight, he had broad shoulders and a lean, wiry strength about him that made Harry's mouth dry. He couldn't stop thinking about it, how good this lad felt in his arms, the warm, present weight of him. When he turned around, slipping a thigh between Harry's, Harry leaned down and kissed him before he could stop himself. He wasn't normally like this--he liked the chase, the tension of the wait. Now he didn't want to wait. He wanted to suck this beautiful bloke's cock.

He kissed back for one, two seconds, and then his hands slipped from Harry's neck to grope at Harry's arse. Harry gasped; his hips rolled forward until they were really grinding togeth, slow and deep and dirty, and he could feel the strength hidden in the bloke's fingers. The bass was pounding through his veins. He pressed even closer, palmed the back of the guy's head; they kissed again. His mouth was wet and lush; Harry's own mouth felt bruised, swollen. 

He felt the bloke's hand slip from his arse to his hand; he tugged once, then twice. They stumbled off the floor together. There was something pounding through his veins more heavy, insistent than his arousal; he wanted to grab, possess. He pulled at the bloke's hand, causing him to stagger back. "Wait," he said, voice pitched deep. "What's your name?" 

He got an eyebrow raise in return. "Zed," the lad said, after a long pause. "You?" 

"Harry." And then they were off again, in line for the bathroom. He grabbed at Zed's arse, small as it was, and was rewarded with a groan, another searing, burning kiss. Harry felt detached at the same time he felt so consumed with desire he would have fucked right there if Zed had suggested it. How strange it was, to feel so strongly. He felt--bizarrely--singed, like he had come too close to something that might have devoured him and managed to escape it right before it could have. But then--he was overthinking it. He wasn't making full enough use of his body if he was considering it like this. It had to be whittled down to two things: the physicality of the body before him and the physicality of his own. There could be no complexity in the ways they fit together. That would ruin it. He thought about this as he was sucking on Zed's tongue, and then a stall opened up in front of him and he gave himself over to it, that desire, their bodies, slipping together in the fluorescent lighting, the pounding bass of the club heavy beneath it all.

*

They managed to clean themselves and stumble out, back to the bar, and then Harry said, "D'you want to go get a kebab with me?"

Zed turned those amber eyes on him. He'd noticed, in the bathroom, how long Zed's eyelashes were, and here in the flashing club lights they were even longer, casting strange shadows over those high cheekbones. He looked confused. Harry felt confused himself; he was breaking one of his own rules, which was that club hookups ought to stay in the club. But he persisted: "I'll pay." 

Zed looked baffled for a moment longer, but practicality won out. He shrugged. "Sure, why not."

They turned down the street into a place Harry went to a couple times a week; they ordered and then sat around at the tables, waiting for the order to be called. Harry had no idea why he'd asked Zed along at all, but he used the time to study the curve of Zed's cheek, the careful way he sat down at the plastic table, less sure of himself under the bright lights. He drummed his fingers along the tabletop, checked his phone once, twice.

"You're not from around here, are you?" Harry said, to break the silence. They were sitting facing each other, legs spread wide underneath the table.

"Bradford," Zed confirmed with a nod. 

"Cheshire, myself," Harry said. He felt delighted to have found this point of similarity; it was possible he was more drunk than he'd originally thought. Zed smirked a little bit, as if he could tell. At that moment, a group of girls walked in; Harry couldn't see them, since his back was facing the door, but he could hear them chattering, and then he saw Zed's head go up, his face drain of all colour, his hands freeze. 

A sharp gasp sounded behind him, and then the click of heels as one of the girls seemed to break off from the group. 

"Jes--" Zed said, wincing, and then the girl apparently named Jes, a curvy girl with long, dark hair, was at their table. Her face was a thundercloud of fury.

"You had better have a great explanation for this, Zayn," she said. A fake name, then. She was practically snarling. Zayn was pale but holding his ground. Harry heard the cook call out their kebab order, but felt pinned between this battle of wills. "A _great_ explanation," Jes repeated. "Who is he?" She stabbed a finger with a very long, black fingernail at Harry. Behind him, the other girls were whispering; what they were saying, he couldn't make out. 

"He's no one," Zayn said, and then, "He's just a mate." Harry must have frowned at that, because Jes snorted inelegantly.

"That's full bullshit, and we both know it." She whirled on Harry. " _He_ has a girlfriend and shouldn't be with anyone at all tonight." 

Harry raised his hands up in surrender. "I don't know anything," he said. "Uh--I think my order was called." He went up to the counter, grabbed his food, and used it as an excuse to slip out the door. He thought about going back to give Zayn his kebab, but figured he could just wake up Nick and feed him instead. He couldn't stop thinking about it, though. He wondered if it made him a bad person to want Zayn's number even though he knew now that Zayn had cheated. But he did want it; because he wanted to see Zayn again.

*

He thought about that encounter for some weeks after, in a consuming way that he wasn't used to. He had flashes of it at strange moments. Sometimes the street lamp would shadow Nick's face in a weird way at night and he had an image of the way the club lights flashed over Zayn's face. Or he would go pull another bloke and right at the moment he was coming, would have a perfect memory of the way Zayn's hands had felt around his cock. Or, worst of all, he'd just be sitting in meetings, legs crossed, taking notes, and then his cock would start chubbing up in his pants because out of nowhere he'd thought about the pink flash of Zayn's tongue as he'd licked Harry's come off his fingers. It was both horrible and perfect, in the sense that he'd never felt so tormented and so fruitless in the torment, but he'd also never felt so productive. He was channeling it all into both his day job, something boring to do with the law he wasn't even sure he understood, and the songwriting he did on the side to make a little extra money and as a creative output. The first was something to tell his parents, who asked after him every so often but who he'd mostly cut contact with. The second was for him and him alone. 

Almost a month later, he thought he was maybe finally over it. He'd asked Nick to ask around about an Asian guy named Zayn with silver hair, but even Nick's extensive contacts had nothing for him. It meant Zayn probably wasn't a regular on the gay club scene, which made sense if he had a girlfriend, one he'd been cheating on. One Harry'd helped him cheat on, even if he hadn't known. The thing that made his stomach turn a little bit was that he would be willing to help again. He hadn't told Nick that--about the cheating or how he felt about it. It didn't matter, anyway--even if he saw Zayn again, surely Zayn wouldn't be willing to--with the same guy. Twice. No one went to clubs for long term anything. 

He was hurrying down the street, trying to make it to the Starbucks at the corner before the rain started really coming down hard, when he bumped into someone and both their briefcases went flying. He bent down to reach for his own at the same time the other guy did, and looked up to meet Zayn's straight nose and long eyelashes. 

"Oh," he said. "Hello."

"Hi."

The rain spattered down around them. They stayed crouched down awkwardly.

"I think you've got my briefcase," Zayn said.

"No, I'm pretty sure this is mine."

"No, this is yours." Zayn held up an identical briefcase that had fallen beside him. They looked between them for a second, then Harry looked into the first one. His hair and his suit were getting wet, but he was terrified of losing this moment. He pulled out notes that appeared to be identical to his own.

"These are my notes," he said.

"No," Zayn said patiently, "they're my notes." His accent turned it into something long and languorous, the s quiet and sibilant at the end. 

"Do we work at the same place? They look pretty much like the same notes." 

"I work at a gallery." 

"Oh." So no, then. He felt foolishly transparent to be shut down so easily.

"Those notes have my name on them." Harry glanced, and indeed they did have _Zayn Malik_ in a neatly printed script at the top. "So..." Zayn held out his hand. "I need to go." 

Harry stood up, stuffed the notes back into the briefcase, traded briefcases with Zayn. Both of them were wet, though not soaked, though the knees of Harry's suit may not have been salvageable. "Nice to see you again," he said. Zayn flashed him a brief look and Harry went hot with mortification. "Sorry. I'm normally better at this." 

"At what?" 

"Pulling fit blokes." He wanted to, but didn't, slap his face into his palm. This was easier when drunk.

Zayn gave him that same look, though this time it was longer, more considering. "D'you drink coffee?" he said, jerking his head at the Starbucks down the road.

"Was just about to head there." 

They fell into step together, hurrying towards an awning that might protect them. Harry could feel anticipation thrumming through his veins. He was excited--beyond that, even. Something fit into place with a satisfying click. He thought it might go somewhere this time.

*

Zayn liked smoking after sex, which wasn't that surprising, but he liked cuddling, which was. Actually, there were a lot of things about Zayn that Harry found surprising. His smile, which Harry had only seen for the first time after he'd tripped on the stairs bringing Zayn up to his flat, was huge and crinkly-eyed and not mysterious or self collected at all. He had tattoos all up his arms and down his chest, and some of them were quite ugly; one looked like a comic, and that was surprising too, that Zayn was a comic book nerd. He had a snorting laugh; it was almost impossible to wake him up once he fell asleep; he could grow a beard in less than three days. He liked cooking and sometimes he would cook Harry dinner. He stopped to say hi every time he saw a dog in the street.

They'd been fucking for three months now. Harry thought he might be in love.

He was strangely okay with the fact that he wasn't Zayn's officially. It was annoying for Zayn to sneak around with him and it was annoying that Zayn had to plan his schedule around _her_ but the other parts were fine. He tried to rationalise it to himself by reasoning that he'd known it since the beginning and so he'd never built up any expectations, but really he thought it was romantic. Nick said it made him feel like he was suffering, and that it was unhealthy. Harry ignored him. 

This time he'd smoked three fags in a row, and not in the languid way he usually did post-shag. Instead he was inhaling and exhaling almost robotically. 

"You all right?" Harry said. He was on his stomach, cheek turned into the pillow, watching Zayn. 

Zayn lifted a shoulder in half a shrug. "Yeah. Why?" 

"All those fags can't be good for you." 

Zayn gave him one of those half-confused, half-exasperated looks Harry'd grown very familiar with over the past few months. "Why do you care?" he said, lighting another. 

Harry didn't know how to answer that. "Because I'm in love with you," was a ridiculous answer and not one Zayn would accept, besides. "Well...we are in my flat," he said lamely. 

Zayn cast another glance at him and stubbed it out. "There. Happy?" He left it on the bedside table and stretched out under the sheets. He looked very good in Harry's bed, though not even Harry was vain enough to think that was because of the location. Zayn looked good anywhere and everywhere. 

"Are you going to sleep?" 

"Yeah. Why, d'you need me to leave? Have someone coming over?" 

"No," Harry said slowly. "I don't know. Just wanted to talk, I guess." 

"Talk?" Zayn said. He was smiling. It was that smile that made Harry think Zayn might actually like him. Sometimes he'd say something innocuous only to turn and be hit with the force of that smile. It knocked him off his feet. "What about?" 

"I mean--I don't know. We don't really even know each other, right?" 

"I think we know each other all right," Zayn said. He wiggled his eyebrows. That was another surprising thing--for all his sophisticated exterior, he had the sense of humour of a twelve year old sometimes. 

"Zayn," Harry whined. "You know what I mean." 

"This is weird pillow talk," Zayn said. "But all right, what's so pressing about me you had to know it?" 

"Oh--I mean, I didn't really have anything in mind." He thought for a moment. "How d'you feel about jelly beans?"

"Fine?" Zayn said. He shook his head. "I don't hate them? I don't know what you want me to say." 

Harry was quiet for another moment. "What's your relationship with your family?" 

"What?" When he looked up at Zayn he could catch the edge of the bemused expression on his face. "You ask me about jelly beans and then about this?"

"Just answer," Harry said. He could hear someone's phone buzzing, but their phones were in their jean pockets and their jeans were on the other side of the room from the bed. He didn't want Zayn to leave yet. 

"I don't know," Zayn said. "It's also fine. I like both my parents fine." 

Harry rolled over and made a face up at him. "That's not a real answer!" 

Zayn rolled his eyes. "You don't even want a real answer." 

Harry sat up. "What does that mean?" 

Zayn shook his head. "Nah, never mind." 

"No, what does it mean?" 

Zayn lit another fag. He took a drag off it, exhaled slowly. Once the smoke lingering in the air had dissipated, he grimaced. "You don't even know what you want from me." 

"Yeah, I do," Harry said slowly. "We shag, that's what I want." 

Zayn shook his head. He took another drag. "You have this weird--idea of me. Like, you think I'm this closeted guy, I'm so self-loathing I can't even tell my girlfriend I'm gay, I never talk about my family because I'm Muslim or Asian or whatever, you have this whole thing you built around me. So you ask me these questions because you want to confirm your suspicions about me, not because you really want to know."

Harry was unpleasantly reminded that Zayn worked at an art gallery whenever he spoke like this. "I do want to know, or I wouldn't have asked," he said. "And I don't think any of those things about you." 

"Yeah, you do." Zayn snorted. "You really do. You think you're in love with me or you think it'd be nice to be." For a moment Harry couldn't breathe. Instead of answering, he looked down at his hands, at the way they were clenched in the sheets.

"What should I be asking, then?" he said as evenly as he could.

"Nothing," Zayn retorted. "I'm--what do you think I am? I've been cheating on my girlfriend of four years with you for three months now. I am out to her, by the way. And I'm not self-loathing or closeted. My family knows about me too. Does yours?" 

Harry recoiled. "I don't think you're allowed to ask that now." He was surprised at how well he could still speak despite the rage choking his throat.

"So you're not," Zayn said meanly. "So I'm a cheater and you're a closeted queer who's fucking a cheater." 

"Why are you saying this?" Harry said desperately.

"Why aren't you telling me to stop?" Zayn answered. He stubbed his fag out, got out of bed and began searching for his clothes. "I have to go. I think that was my phone." 

"Yeah," Harry said. "You should probably go, that'd be for the best." Zayn paused in the middle of his dressing. He raised an eyebrow at the finality of Harry's tone. 

"All right," he said, though now he looked a little shaken too. "Well, nice knowing you."

"Please see yourself out," Harry said. When he heard the door click behind Zayn, he drew his knees up to his chest. He really hadn't expected that, and maybe the worst of it had been that Zayn had been partially right. It sat in his chest like a stone, sinking into him. He had thought--something different, had expected a really sad story, something tragic, not something as banal as this. Having it thrown in his face that perhaps they were just two terrible people sat badly with him. Of course it did. 

*

He thought about it over the next few months. It was easy to think and overthink it, since it was the last conversation he had with Zayn. In terms of convenience, it was the easiest breakup he'd ever had, if he could even call it a breakup. He'd never been over to Zayn's since he lived with his fiance, and Zayn never left anything at his place. Really all they'd given each other was time. A few dinners, a few shags, a small conversation here or there. No space, no lasting imprints. Simply a facsimile of intimacy Harry had foolishly mistaken for love. 

Which wasn't to say that it didn't hurt when Zayn never texted. It did. It just didn't hurt as much as he'd thought it might. It was easy to go back to the rhythm of his old life, like Zayn had never entered it. He just thought about it all the time. The last conversation. He dissected it to see if there was anything he could have said differently; of course there had been. It didn't matter. 

He didn't avoid the areas they went on purpose but sometimes he would see the girl Jes (Jesy, he knew now) from the first night they'd met and resolve not to go back there any longer. He was afraid of her approaching him and telling him something he didn't want to hear--or worse, something he did want to hear. If she blamed him for Zayn breaking up with his fiance, Harry might contact Zayn again, and that felt like it shouldn't happen. 

It was all for the best anyway. He could restore his moral balance. It was better this way.

Nick seemed to be worried about him. "You should come out with me," he kept saying. Finally Harry took him up on it. They went out to a nice showing on the other side of town, an art show Nick assured him he'd love.

The room was like all art galleries, large and filled with well dressed, chattering people. Next to him, Nick was pointing out people he knew who Harry might know or like. Harry was silent. He'd caught sight of a familiar silver head on the other side of the room. Absentmindedly he took a glass of wine from a tray a waiter held out to him. 

"You all right?" Nick said.

Zayn is here, Harry didn't say. Nick didn't know the full Zayn story. "Yeah, just thought I saw someone I knew, but it was someone else," he said. Then Nick was introducing him to his friend Niall, who it turned out Harry knew through songwriting. 

"You been here before?" Niall said. 

"No, Nick dragged me out, I don't make it much to this part of town. You?" 

"A friend suggested it. I don't do art shows much but this is pretty nice, eh?" He waved at someone behind Harry. "Oh, there he is! Zayno! You met Harry here yet?" 

And then there was Zayn. His hair had grown out but he looked much the same. Maybe smaller than Harry remembered. Instead of that cool self-possession Harry'd always admired, he seemed almost flustered before he managed to collect himself. He gave Harry a coolly appraising look. Harry smiled back at him. 

"We might have seen each other around, yeah," Zayn said. "Nice seeing you, Harry." 

"Same," Harry said. He couldn't tell what his face was doing. "How are you, then? How's--uh--" He couldn't remember Zayn's girlfriend's name, or if Zayn had even told him. 

"We broke up," Zayn said. His voice was very low. "Last month." 

"Oh. That's...I'm sorry." 

Niall, looking between the two of them, slipped away between one word and the next.

Zayn lifted one shoulder in a laconic shrug. "Yeah. I--" He rubbed at his mouth. "Anyway." He lifted his wine glass as a toast and Harry lifted his back. Their glasses clinked together. The people around them chatted and giggled and appraised art in hushed voices. Zayn didn't take his eyes off Harry. They looked at each other a moment longer, and then Harry smiled a bit. He put his hands in his pockets. He turned around and walked to the door. He could hear Zayn's footsteps behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> yk when you're pretty sure you should spend a lot more time reworking/rewriting something but can't be fucked? yeah. I don't endorse anyone's views in this, esp Harry's views about cheating & Zayn's views on coming out.
> 
> reblog [here](http://hotgaydumbledore.tumblr.com/post/132826088907/where-we-can-meet-again-4k-pairing-zaynharry) // my tumblr [here](http://hotgaydumbledore.tumblr.com/)
> 
> comments/concrit really appreciated; Zarry dynamic is _weird_ and I'm not sure I did it justice.


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